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House GOP unafraid of defense cuts

The sequester itself is feared by military families in Mulvaney's district, he says. | AP Photo

South Carolina is home to Rep. Joe Wilson, rebuked for famously yelling “you lie!” at Obama during a 2009 health care speech. It’s also home to the newly minted Sen. Tim Scott, the first African-American senator from the South since the late 19th century.

At 57, Graham is a grizzled veteran in a delegation that once boasted the more than 100 year-old Sen. Strom Thurmond. At the same time, he himself is implicitly challenged by a new tide of younger conservatives like Rep. Mick Mulvaney, who was the spark behind the defense cuts last July and again in the recent debate.

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Mulvaney’s home district includes the giant Shaw Air Force Base; fighter jets decorate his office press releases. But he teamed up with then-Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) last summer and was elated when so many Republicans joined on the deeper proposed cut in the Sandy debate.

“I won a dinner, I was really surprised by that,” Mulvaney told POLITICO of the GOP support for the Jan. 15 vote. The lesson, he said, is not just a willingness to take on defense but also a greater acceptance of an across-the-board approach to budget cutting generally. “The surgical cuts we’ve promised never come,” Mulvaney said. “And voters at home understand it.”

The sequester itself is feared much more by military families in his district, he said, and he will work to avoid it. But Mulvaney said the recent votes are a warning too that Republicans won’t give in without alternative savings.

“I just think we’re not thinking about defense, thinking about the national security footprint that you want,” Graham told POLITICO, explaining his opposition to the proposed cuts in the Senate Monday night. “An across-the-board cut in light of the sequester looming, I thought was ill-advised.”

In their letter to the Appropriations leadership, the Joint Chiefs don’t mince words.

“Should this looming readiness crisis be left unaddressed, we will have to ground aircraft, return ships to port, and stop driving combat vehicles in training,” the chiefs wrote. “Training will be reduced by almost half of what we were planning just three months ago. We are now planning for the potential to furlough up to nearly 800,000 defense civilians.”

As a practical matter, that number will most likely be less than 800,000. But there are real discussions of 22 furlough days over the remainder of the fiscal year for hundreds of thousands of workers. And from the Border Patrol to airport security and the Federal Aviation Administration, the same threat of furloughs is real.

“Wait until they start furloughing air traffic controllers. You think the airlines are going to like that?” Mikulski said. “The people who work for the federal government keep our economy going. … I appreciate what the Joint Chiefs have said and they have serious issues. But at the same time, so do the domestic agencies.”